


But Who's Counting?

by halotolerant



Category: The Professionals
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-21
Updated: 2010-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:01:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time doesn't count. Filthily fluffy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Who's Counting?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you most splendid elfwhistletree for beta.

The first time didn’t count, because it wasn’t sex.

Admittedly the nakedness, the heavy breathing and the fact that at one point Ray, struggling to breathe, wondered if Bodie’s cock would ever fit into his arse at all might suggest otherwise. But it wasn’t sex, not really, because it wasn’t about any of those things and absolutely definitely not anything to do with feelings, except maybe patriotism. And fear.

Lying back and thinking of England. Or kneeling and doing so. Remembering that somewhere, somehow, this underground porn studio linked to a money laundering service that linked to an arms dealer that linked to whoever had shot General Mason and the Sheik’s brother. Concentrating on the fact that doing this had become the only way to keep their cover, the only way to keep each other alive.

So Ray had been thinking about England pretty damn hard, not about how the sheets smelt or the origin of their stains, not about the glaring, hot light in his face, not about the humiliation or the fact that he was in no way paid enough for this. Certainly not about Bodie, not about his cock, inside, moving, and the sheer, overwhelming _everything_ of that... Not about Bodie’s fingers, beforehand, smooth and slow as they could be, stretching him until he panted.

“OK?” Bodie had murmured, mouth close to his ear, tone strangely desperate, the scent of his aftershave spreading in a damp, sweaty corona, too familiar.

Ray was not OK, was anger twisting in torsion to fight something else, something electric and deadly, live wire sparking.

But if he would, in a heartbeat, die for Bodie, then _this_ , what was this? Nothing worth mentioning. Not sex, just another action, another exercise; something he could imbue with whatever meaning he chose.

 “Good,” he gasped back, legs trembling. The tension in his muscles broke and he fell down to the bed, cock rubbing the sheets in one long slide of _just there_ , and Bodie, and Bodie, and Bodie still going, still with him...

\- - -

The next time wasn’t really the first either, because Ray had done it before.

Admittedly not to Bodie - in fact not to any man, but it turned out that whatever anatomical differences there were between the genders in that particular area, you couldn’t tell.

Or couldn’t feel, at least.

“You’ve been off since the Mason case.” Bodie had said, angry, more angry than Ray was expecting, cornering him in his own car, eyes too bright. “I suppose you’re ashamed or disgusted or something desperately middle class like that.”

Ray hadn’t really known how he was feeling, until that moment when he realised that both those adjectives were utterly wrong. And then somehow he was angry too.

“We’re not the same anymore,” Ray had said, and he’d not meant that he wanted to fuck Bodie, but somehow it got them there anyway. To Bodie’s bed, and Bodie’s naked body under his, skin under his hands, fragrant and male and endless, he could just keep stroking over it forever except there was a task at hand, and Bodie still looked almost angry, like he was expecting something.

No one was watching, this time. It was theirs, their choice. Ray’s skin burned with the racing of his blood, the ache of his cock, the emptiness of his arms and his mouth, both of which he didn’t dare to open.

Ray had done it before, a few girlfriends had expressed a liking, and it felt much the same, Bodie more relaxed than most of the girls had been, and more in control, giving orders with snatched breaths.

Bodie was on his hands and knees, and Ray couldn’t see him, only feel, only feel and wonder, in sudden fearful desperation, if it had been so obvious to Bodie, before, how Ray had been responding to this.

“There, we’re equal again now, both so very manly” Bodie had said, afterwards, getting straight up off the bed and walking away to the kitchen, running the tap, downing a pint glass of water and staring out the window. “Meet you tomorrow like nothing happened.”

Ray had got as far as his car before the weight hit, square in the sternum like a heart attack. They’d done nothing, just had a fuck. It had been clinical as a reflex assessment, animal as eating together, and involved no promises, no offers, no nakedness at all except the obvious, which had long ago stopped being a novelty between them.

He felt split open all the same, like he’d left some part of himself behind, like having got inside Bodie he’d never really got out again.

\- - -

The next time no one did any fucking, so it wasn’t really a time at all.

 _That was inside me_ , Ray had thought, staring down at where their hands were slip-sliding on each other, fast and thrilling, over and over, so good, too good.

Bodie hissed, not his name, not a word, just a sound escaping through gritted teeth; Ray’s eyes moved to his face and he looked like he was in pain, like he was being tortured.

He needed Bodie to smile again. That had got them here; eight days since they’d collided in his flat and Bodie looking lost on every one of them, speaking to him in sarcasm and brittle jokes. Driving him mad and sucker-punching him in perfect tandem. That scent of Bodie’s aftershave, never close enough, Bodie trying not to touch him. Bodie staring at him when he thought Ray couldn’t see, all hunger and narrowed eyes.

Except finally, after that, Ray had begun to believe he understood what Bodie wanted. And then the joy could have broken his face open and he was desperate to see Bodie smiling, needing to show him, tell him, feel him, hold him; delirious with it.

So there was no time, they were standing in the toilets where Ray had dragged them, Bodie’s eyes closed, not protesting but not speaking, nothing explained or confessed and there was no time at all.

Ray leant forwards as they moved on each other, as his body started to hum. Kissed Bodie, slowly, carefully, for the first time.

Bodie’s mouth opened for him, after a while, and then Ray felt it, felt it clearer and stronger even than coming, because it wasn’t the sex that counted; Bodie grinning under his lips.

\- - -

 “Come on, come on you bastard, _there_ we are, there we are...”

The next time, Ray is far too busy to worry about counting. The next time it’s Bodie in him again, fingers and then, _fuck_ , tongue, and then his cock, his cock slow and slippery and all that Ray’s been missing, maybe forever, and evidently with the power to make him into a sentimental twat. Apparently all the soppy poems are true and when it hits you, when this particular feeling really fucking hits you, there’s no recovery.

Bodie bites his neck, and Ray comes dangerously close to saying it.

Face to face, Bodie’s eyes, long lashes, the most intent gaze Ray’s has ever encountered, looking right at him, looking almost... worried?

Ray leans closer, gets him deeper, and waits till they can both breathe again to start speaking. The whole universe is them, just the two of them and _this_ , reality will kick back at them sometime soon no doubt, but today they are everything.

He can feel Bodie’s heart beating through both their skins, and Bodie must be feeling his.

“OK?” he whispers, because he doesn’t have the words ready yet, not the real ones, not the ones that really count.

“Good,” Bodie tells him, after a pause, gazing at him, panting, shifting his hips just enough to make Ray moan. He presses their foreheads together and Bodie’s voice goes low, cracked and tentative; “Good, Ray. Fucking good, darling.”

Ray drags him close with everything he’s got and there’s colour and light and the whole universe exploding.

\- - -

The next time, Ray wakes slowly, stretches and smiles and tells Bodie it’s his turn now.

\- - -

And so it continues.

\- - -

  
  



End file.
